Colleges and universities once used race-based affirmative action policies to alleviate the racism Black applicants faced in the admissions process. It wasn’t a perfect tool nor universally embraced, but it did make a difference. Nothing illustrates that point more than the drop in Black student enrollment following the Supreme Court’s decision to ban their use. While conservative Supreme Court justices argued a colorblind process was the only fair path forward, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in her dissenting opinion that “race still matters to the lived experiences of all Americans in innumerable ways, and today’s ruling makes things worse, not better,” arguing “if the colleges of this country are required to ignore a thing that matters, it will not just go away. It will take longer for racism to leave us. And, ultimately, ignoring race makes it matter more.” The results following the ban have proven her point.
While Harvard University has not yet reported its demographic profile, several schools have reported a drop in the share of Black and other racially marginalized students following Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard University and Students for Fair Admissions v. the University of North Carolina. For example, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Amherst College, and Tufts University each reported the proportion of Black students admitted dropped significantly following the ban. Perhaps the most shocking report came from Brown University, revealing Black student enrollment dropped by 40% for the first freshman class admitted after their decision. Most elite colleges and universities since the ban have admitted fewer Black students, and this is precisely what Jackson warned would occur.
By banning race-based affirmative action policies, conservative justices stripped admissions officers of a powerful tool they could use to mitigate racial discrimination. We’re witnessing in real time the outcome of colorblind racial ideology implemented into law. Sure, federal courts can prohibit admissions officers from considering an applicant’s race, but that doesn’t change the fact that racism impacts the admissions process. To understand how, we must consider the distribution of academic resources. Predominately Black K-12 schools typically receive less funding than predominately white schools, a disparity that affects their access to higher learning institutions. Baker et al found that African American students were twice as likely as white students to attend schools in districts “below estimated adequate levels, and 3.5 times more likely to be in ‘chronically underfunded’ districts.”
When admissions decisions rely heavily upon standardized test scores, they fail to consider the weaknesses in the validity of these measures, particularly how factors such as school funding impact test scores. Expecting Black students deprived of adequate resources to produce test scores that compete with students provided with adequate resources isn’t impartial — it’s biased against the most marginalized. Students for Fair Admissions, the group that sued to end affirmative action policies, seem unconcerned with the unfair conditions Black students experience, which is ironic given their name suggests they want “fair admissions” in America’s higher learning institutions.
There’s nothing fair about ignoring race in a society inundated with racism. Those who ignore the role race plays are depriving Black students of opportunities under the guise of meritocracy or fairness. However, while Americans like to imagine themselves far removed from the Jim Crow era, the racial discrimination of yesteryear is continuing to block access to equal educational opportunities. After all, K-12 public schools are funded by local sales and property taxes. Since Black Americans endured generations of racial redlining, policies that controlled where they could live and whether they could purchase a home are less likely in the modern era to live in communities with high property values. Thus, banning race-based affirmative action policies in this context only perpetuated the racial hierarchy, blocking a path to mitigate historical injustices produced, in part, by housing discrimination.
While some scholars warned that the Supreme Court’s decision to ban race-based affirmative action policies would decrease the share of Black students admitted to elite colleges and universities, they were largely ignored by those in positions of power. And most of the justices sided with anti-affirmative action arguments. While some claimed these policies did not have much of an impact, and thus, their removal wouldn’t harm Black students. Others suggested they were unfair to white students. However, the results of the demographic profile of some colleges show many Black and racially marginalized students were slighted. Contrary to conservative critique, the Supreme Court’s decision to ban race-based affirmative action policies did not make the college admissions process fairer. Indeed, now the process is decidedly unfair for Black students. Following the Supreme Court’s decision to ban race-based affirmative action policies, we’re seeing Black student enrollment plummet in some colleges and universities, something unsurprising to those reading the tea leaves.
There’s no need to wonder why Black student enrollment is taking a nosedive following the Supreme Court’s decision to ban affirmative action policies. Those passionate about educational equity have long warned this would happen because these policies attempted to level the playing field. The fact that, in their absence, racial minorities are less likely to receive an acceptance letter proves that point. As Ketanji Brown Jackson suggested in her dissenting opinion, “With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces ‘colorblindness for all’ by legal fiat. But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life. And having so detached itself from this country’s actual past and present experiences, the Court has now been lured into interfering with the crucial work that UNC and other institutions of higher learning are doing to solve America’s real-world problems.”
In the post-civil rights era, we’re seeing the dangers of colorblind racial attitudes cemented into law. Those who refuse to acknowledge race are unwilling to concede racism persists and, thus, will do nothing to mitigate the harm racism produces. When we apply that theory to academic admissions, we see that removing race as an admissions factor didn’t ensure that students received equal opportunities. It simply mandated that academic admissions officers turn a blind eye to the systemic racism impacting academic outcomes and, thus, overlook the racism Black students experience. Of course, Black students can enroll in Historically Black Colleges and Universities and avoid the racism present in many predominately White institutions. Indeed, many do. However, the presence of some colleges and universities designed to embrace Black students doesn’t negate the responsibility of others to ensure Black students receive equal access to academic opportunities when they apply. Reports indicating fewer Black students were admitted to some colleges and universities following the ban remind us that fighting racism is a proactive process, and once the action stops, so does the racial progress.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of Allison Gaines' work on Medium.
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